A blog about Reasoning, Argumentation, and Informal Logic

Informal Logic vol. 31 no. 4, on Charles Hamblin

The latest edition of Informal Logic, dedicated to topics emerging from Charles Hamblin’s landmark 1970 work, Fallacies, is now available. Contributing authors to this volume include Jim Mackenzie, Douglas Walton, Ralph Johnson, Fabrizio Macagno, and Jan Ablert van Laar and John Woods.It’s an interesting and welcome collection of essays with entries that range from developments of Hamblin’s ideas to criticism of the same. In the latter category is John Woods’s highly recommended essay “Whither Consequence?”. Those interested in foundational questions of informal logic (for instance, whether informal logic is rightly called logic in the first place) will find Woods’s discussion of Hamblin’s views on induction very stimulating indeed. It is an important discussion not just for informal logicians and argumentation theorists, but for logicians of all denominations. It easily is one of the best essays of the year.

Having had only the opportunity to peruse the other entries at this point I have to say that I’m very much looking forward to reading them too. If they are as interesting and insightful as I believe they are on the basis of what I’ve seen of them, then this issue of Informal Logic is a worthy tribute to the enduring importance of Charles Hamblin’s work and its impact on our field.